Growth in the Immigration Court Backlog Continues in FY 2019

The Immigration Court backlog continues to rise. As of November 30, 2018, the number of pending cases on the court's active docket topped eight-hundred thousand (809,041) cases. This is almost a fifty percent (49.1%) increase compared to the 542,411 cases pending at the end of January 2017 when President Trump took office. This figure does not include the additional 330,211 previously completed cases that EOIR placed back on the "pending" rolls that have not yet been put onto the active docket[1].

Table 1. Growth in the Immigration Court Backlog by State

Rank	State*	Beginning of FY 2017	End of November 2018	Percent Increase
1	Maryland	17,074	35,300	107%
2	Georgia	13,955	26,447	90%
3	Florida	32,233	60,793	89%
4	Massachusetts	15,208	28,490	87%
5	New Jersey	27,457	44,096	61%
6	New York	70,303	108,458	54%
6	California	95,252	146,826	54%
8	Virginia	29,467	44,154	50%
9	Texas	91,865	119,401	30%
10	Illinois	23,242	29,922	29%

* Top ten states with largest current court case backlog.

All states are witnessing an increase in Immigration Court backlogs[2]. However, ten states account for the vast majority of the backlog. Four out of five pending cases in the country are before immigration judges in these ten states. The state of Maryland continues to lead the pack with the highest rate of increase in pending cases since the beginning of FY 2017. Pending caseloads in Maryland have increased by 107 percent, over double its caseload at the beginning of FY 2017. Of the top ten states, courts based in Illinois experienced the least amount of growth at 29 percent. Texas barely missed being in the bottom growth rate spot with a 30 percent increase. See Table 1.

In absolute terms, California has the largest Immigration Court backlog - 146,826 cases waiting decision, a number that has increased by 54 percent from its FY 2017 pending caseload level. These results are based upon proceeding-by-proceeding internal Immigration Court records obtained and analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University

Backlog Increases in the First Two Months of FY 2019

Just in the last two months, the Immigration Court active backlog has grown by over 40 thousand cases, from 768,257 at the end of September to 809,041 at the end of November. Particularly high growth rates of 10 percent or higher were experienced at nine Immigration Courts.

The two courts with the highest rate of growth in their backlog were two courts at ICE detention facilities. The Eloy Immigration Court in Arizona saw its backlog increase by 144 percent, while the Conroe Immigration Court (Houston SPC) in Texas had an increase of 62 percent. These increases occurred even though the court assigns the highest priority to hearing detained cases. See Figure 1 and Table 2.

Table 2. Growth in the Immigration Court Backlog in First Two Months of FY 2019 by Court

Rank	Immigration Court*	End of September 2018	End of November 2018	Change	Percent Change
1	Miami	37,620	42,154	4,534	12.1%
2	New York	100,837	105,100	4,263	4.2%
3	Houston	50,542	53,575	3,033	6.0%
4	Orlando	15,118	17,792	2,674	17.7%
5	Los Angeles	73,988	76,279	2,291	3.1%
6	San Francisco	58,579	60,677	2,098	3.6%
7	Memphis	13,348	14,795	1,447	10.8%
8	Newark	41,909	43,341	1,432	3.4%
9	Philadelphia	14,247	15,509	1,262	8.9%
10	New Orleans	10,622	11,810	1,188	11.2%
11	Atlanta	24,515	25,680	1,165	4.8%
12	Baltimore	34,240	35,300	1,060	3.1%
13	Boston	27,579	28,490	911	3.3%
14	Dallas	24,859	25,750	891	3.6%
15	Phoenix	8,311	9,129	818	9.8%
16	Chicago	29,109	29,922	813	2.8%
17	Kansas City	8,272	9,058	786	9.5%
18	Conroe (Houston SPC)	1,250	2,023	773	61.8%
19	Eloy	524	1,281	757	144.5%
20	San Antonio	26,337	27,036	699	2.7%
21	Arlington	43,567	44,153	586	1.3%
22	Bloomington	8,015	8,547	532	6.6%
23	Las Vegas	4,190	4,691	501	12.0%
24	Seattle	10,502	10,983	481	4.6%
25	Cleveland	9,866	10,343	477	4.8%

* These 25 courts handle 88 percent of the current backlog.

TRAC is a nonpartisan, nonprofit data research center affiliated with the Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Whitman School of Management, both at Syracuse University. For more information, to subscribe, or to donate, contact trac@syr.edu or call 315-443-3563.